i bought a christmas present today. yay me! it’s for my mom pattie. it’s not a very big one. but that makes…. ummm… two. i have purchased two presents so far. i suck. you know, i was all ready to have christmas spirit this year, i really was. it’s been a while. i first lost the christmas spirit in 94, the first christmas after my dad died. he died on jan. 16th, so it had been almost a year. but i went to pennsylvania to be with my stepmom and little brother. and i was so upset, because i was so poor. and there was no dad to buy her anything special. there was no anyone to buy her anything really nice. but like it or not, my most concrete christmas traditions come from my mom’s side of the family. and soon, it became a general missing of my father around his birthday, around january 16th, around any holiday. but i got my christmas spirit back.
i lost it again in ’99. and this time, i lost it for a long long time. in april of 99 my parents split. my mom pattie and my stepdad ron. my mom, dad, aunt vickie, uncle jim and myself were very very close. we are close to everyone in the family, but the five of use were a separate little core of closeness. my older brother wasn’t around enough to understand that closeness. it was really the five of use. we called ourselves the happy shiny “fill in the occasion” family. that came about when i was a junior in high school. jim and vickie were not yet married, but they were living together. mom, ron, vickie and i were driving from oklahoma to colorado, to be with the entire family in grand junction. the car was stuffed to the gills, the vickie and were packed into the back seats, surrounded by pillows and all her christmas craft projects and my books. and i said, “well look at us… aren’t we the happy shiny little christmas family?” i probably said it with a bit of teenage sarcasm in it, but the name stuck. and we became the happy shiny family. the happy shiny easter family. the happy shiny graduation party family. the happy shiny moving someone into a new home family. that was us.
but in 99, the happy shiny family broke up. some of us had very little choice in the matter. and it broke our hearts. ok, mine. i’m sure it broke my mom’s heart too. christmas of 99, my mom and i went to arizona, to be with mour mour and to just be away from the reminders. they were only separated, at that point, and not yet divorced. that became final at christmas of 2000. the decision to divorce came that fall, up until that moment, i still held onto hope. so it hit me really heard in 2000. every christmas, it hits me. i’m really sad. and i miss the way it used to be. and now i feel i am reliving my childhood, trying to work out times, during the holidays, to see family. family who cannot be around each other. last year, i faked christmas spirit. because that was our first christmas without mour mour. and i knew how sad it would be for my mom and vickie. so i faked it. when in reality, i was immersed in the worst depression of my life.
so, the whole point of this is… this year, i felt i could truly get my christmas spirit back. i looooved christmas. i was ready. i thought this was the year. but i don’t feel it. i feel nothing. which is different from previous years, in which i was overwhelmed by the season, and the sadness that came with it, for me. this year… no sadness. no overwhelmed. just… nothing. evildeb says she feels the same way. she keeps adding more decorations to her home, trying to get the spirit. so… maybe there is something wrong with the christmas spirit this year? this is the no fat version? or the vegan version?
or is it just me?